Ramblings on life in rural Japan from a former JET Programme ALT in Towada, Aomori turned permanent resident.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

A productive holiday

In a rare move, I spent most of my Showa Day holiday out and about (instead of holing up in my apartment).

I started my day at Uniqlo--taking advantage of the Golden Week sales. Thankfully I had received a (belated) birthday card from my parents yesterday, so I actually had money to spend there. =P

The purchase I was most pleased about was the One Piece t-shirt. When it was on sale about two weeks ago, I went to Uniqlo at night so all the One Piece shirts were gone. This morning, I was there at 10:30am and got my One Piece shirt right away. The store opened at 10:00am, I believe, and by 11:30am only about two dozen shirts One Piece shirts were left--and none of the design/colour I had. It's pretty crazy how popular One Piece is...

After spending two hours and pretty much all of my birthday money there, I went to the Towada library. There I picked up some guide books about Iwate (I may be taking a weekend trip down there at the end of May) and Kanazawa/Gifu Prefectures (I *will* be taking a long weekend trip down there in October!!).

Following that I headed to Kanchogai Dori (around the Chuo Community Center parking lot) to watch the taiko group I practice with perform and to help with setting up, etc. Since there were so few members (only 5!) and it was a very informal performance (with not so many spectators since it was cold, wet and windy) I actually got to perform a bit as well!! I only joined in the 3 pieces I've (partially) learned so far, and I made lots of mistakes, but it was fun! I definitely feel more motivated to practice now!

When the performance on Kanchogai Dori finished, we were supposed to move to Chuo Park for a night time performance, but since the sakura haven't bloomed yet, most of the food stalls were closing early, so that was canceled.

I hadn't eaten breakfast, and only had a couple of pieces of fried chicken, 1 rice ball, and 1 oinari-san (seasoned rice stuffed in a fried tofu shell) for lunch, so I was pretty hungry. Since it was a cold day, I decided to head to Padock for some yaki (baked) curry to warm me up. ^__^ It was delicious.

After dinner, I headed to Towada Jusco for ice cream at Baskin Robbins. (Double scoops are 31% off until May 5th!!) Since I was in a shopping kind of mood, I also ended up buying a brown handbag I'd been eyeing for a while, as well as a pair of white wedge heels (sorry, you can't really tell they're wedges from the photo).

All in all I felt like it was quite a productive (if expensive) day for me. ^__^

It did leave me wondering, however, when I turned into such a girl! I mean, for the longest time most of my money went to books, manga, anime and hockey, but I think that so far this year I've spent as much on clothing/accessories as I have on books/manga/DVDs/CDs combined! @_@ I guess I should probably blame it on Uniqlo! =P

About Me

Canadian and former JET Programme ALT* who taught English in elementary and junior high schools in Towada from 2007-2012. A certified junior and senior high school English and history teacher in her home province in Canada. (*Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme, Assistant Language Teacher*)